Saturday, June 28, 2014

My class had an amazing day filled with fun, laughs, smiles and celebration! We had students who performed in the talent show for the entire school, gave awards, sang for our parents and enjoyed some cupcake treats! We also said "see ya later" to our amazing principal who has guided our staff to achieving our goals, motivated our staff to continue educating even when it gets tough, and challenged us professionally to make us our best. Dr. Argent will be grately missed, but we wish him the best at Knightdale Highschool. What an amazing way to end a fabulous year in Kindergarten.

What a year it has been!

So a few of my students tried out for the talent show and a bunch of them actually made it! And I have got to say they ROCKED it! I was so proud of my students just making it into the talent show, but they really did an amazing job.

You can imagine how many students got up there and sang "Let it Go" during auditions, but my kids actually made it. During the performance, they had the audience cheering, clapping and laughing. I had helped them choreograph the first minute and a half and the rest of the song, they improvised! Because they all have probably seen Frozen a MILLION times, they did exactly what Elsa did in the movie and had the audience roaring!

Another one of my students loves gonoodle.com and has been practicing Zumba with his mom for a long time. He performed the Zumba dance from Beauty and a Beat and had the audience dancing with him! Can you imagine your six year old up in front of over 600 students and probably 100 parents? So proud of his bravery, because I know I wouldn't have been that brave in kindergarten!

The last act of the talent show was a 'flash mob' for Dr. Argent. Our Romp Chorus sang his favorite song from Wicked and our staff made signs with three adjectives that describe him and held them up. It was a great way to say "thank you" to a leader who is moving on to effect more lives of families, students and staff. Dr. Argent left a legacy at Lake Myra of excellence, always doing the right thing for kids and staff who works together as a family. We will miss you Dr. Argent, but we know where you'll be. Make sure to come back for our Leadership Days and pop in once in a while!

After the talent show, we came back to our classroom for some wiggle breaks, lunch, and prepared for our parents to come to the classroom for our Kindergarten celebration. We sang for our parents, I gave our awards and we watched a video of our class that we made! It was a great celebration filled with smiles, laughs and a few tears!

I am so thankful that I got to spend my first full year of teaching with this bunch of 23 students! I have so many amazing memories from these kids; I hope they come back to visit and tell me how first grade is!

Parents: as you see this, send me pictures that you would like included in this post! This way you can show your family and friends all about your childs' last day of Kindergarten.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I am so sad to see these kinders go! We have been so busy in the classroom with tying up loose ends with assessments, animal studies, addition/subtraction, measurement, reading and comprehension and focusing on handwriting. Wow it has been a busy month!

One of my favorite centers that we can done this quarter is with my shells from spring break. I gathered a TON of shells while at Shell Island this summer in the Florida gulf and created a fun, engaging math addition center. This is a missing addend center. Students get a large shell and one small shell. They then need to find a second small shell that will finish with addition problem. 10+___=12. This is a tough skill for kids to master, so the more engaging centers I have, the better because I rotate them weekly.

To make this center a little more difficult...I have the kids pick three small shells and add the numbers up! Then they place the small shells into the big shell sum. 1+2+3=____. This can be used as a "find the sum" center or "missing addend".

We have also been working on measuring. We used a measurement notebook and the kids went through 12 different centers in 2 days. They were able to practice measuring with blocks, chips, little plastic bears, paperclips, index cards, straws and post its. We measured our feet, lines of tape, and how tall we were.

We also used my Quarter 4 Math Centers in an around the room activity. It is always good to get up and moving the last few weeks of school as we are antsy as it is! The kids loved measuring the beach theme pictures and they practiced essential math skills that I assessed by observation. I call this a win-win!

In Literacy we have been doing some animal studies with snails, pill bugs, worms, and fish. With snails we compared a fiction and non fiction text about snails and the kids wrote their observations and comparisons independently after making this chart.

One more week of school, I am powering through! Some days, I honestly feel like i'm herding cats, but I am going to miss these loves next year! I wouldn't trade my experiences or career for the world!

All of my fun math, literacy, writing and engaging activities can be found on my Creating Teaching Inspiring Instagram or Facebook. Become my follower and I will follow you back!